Tam

  I see Kei and Haley moving with purpose as they emerge from study hall.

  I sigh. Count on the two of them to look dramatic as they check a notebook and stalk the halls. I love my new sister, and I’m beginning to feel the same about Kei, but sometimes – now more than ever – I feel like a twig being tugged along in a whirlpool when the two of them are together.

  Whatever Haley’s force of personality did in the past, it just multiplies around Kei. And our newest sister – because I’m sure that’s what she’ll be, if she stays…

  No matter how quiet and self-effacing Kei is, there’s this power around her. I can feel it when she moves, like I’m a coiled wire and her field generates a current as it passes through. Occasionally I don’t feel that power, when she’s at her quietest, and it’s almost stranger – something more noticeable by its absence.

  Not bad, just strange. And when she’s excited, it’s even more potent.

  Emily can tell, also. I don’t know if the rest of our family has missed it, or are just ignoring it. You’d think, after a lifetime around Haley, that we’d be immune to overwhelm, but the two of them together are another order of magnitude.

  A flash of sparks compared to a thunderclap. A breeze to a windstorm.

  Either way, I don’t rush to them. I’ll be seeing them soon enough, but it’s time for a break. I’ll catch up later.

  I head down a rear corridor and slip out the back doors. More grass and trees and flowering shrubs greet me back here, but no people. I ease the door silently back in place. Though I don’t naturally draw attention like my older sisters, the thought of being alone with my thoughts is a relief right now.

  I look past the careful landscaping to the increasingly untamed forest beyond. I stride into the garden and then the woods, my senses expanding. Bees buzz in the flowers by the school, and around an apple tree further on.

  I cross the treeline like a ghost and move silently in the shadow of the forest. I feel more whole here, and an eternity passes while the girl I am, fades away.

  Tam Donovan, formerly Tam Havelock, former bereft orphan turned fosterling – one desperate for acceptance… she fades away. The forest accepts me as I am, whatever that may be. Much like my family, but there is a feeling the wilderness will always be here. And families die.

  So I move through it like a welcome breeze, circle around, and then, with a sigh, turn back to the school, and my own life.

  Then, I hear it.

  A reedy voice from somewhere in the rooms above me speaks, the words somehow melodious yet dissonant, appreciative yet contemptuous. And oddly ethereal.

  “Such a grand harvest of children.”

  Another voice growls, soft and deep and menacing. And sepulchral. “Not for you, but for the Queen, Jackal.”

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  There is a pause.

  “As you say, Centurion. As you say.”

  Then, there’s nothing. Nothing but a sense of cold absence above me, until that, too, fades.

  Leaving just me crouching low beside the wall, to frightened to move. I stay there, breathing very slowly, hoping nothing notices me, and wondering whether I should go in where the speakers might find me, or stay outside, where watchers from the upper floors can see me.

  I decide to risk the door, open it slowly, looking and listening for anything strange, then dart in.Once through, I waste no time moving out of that section of the school by the back wall and speedwalk my way into the great hall.

  By then I’m calming down, and looking for rational explanations. But I have no reason to go back to the source, on the off chance the voices were real, and saying exactly what I think they said.

  Because there’s no interpretation of that which sounds comforting.

  I check for more ghostly voices in the hall, the gym, the cafeteria, and then finally the science lab.

  Nothing. Well, nothing until I poke my head in the lab, and see Timothy Heron at the workbench with gloves, goggles and a tiny welding torch. Totally unsupervised.

  I wander in, partly because Tim is my only option if I didn’t want to be alone in a suddenly creepy school, and partly because he’s one of the cutest boys in school, in a kind of dreamy way. Or funny, depending on his mood.

  But definitely not my boyfriend, no matter what Haley says, or how many eyerolls Emily sends in my direction.

  “Hey, Timothy,” I say, coming up next to him. He starts, and the mini-torch winks out. Odd electronic parts lay scattered across the polished steel work table. I can see where he’s already put a few together, including a few he’s welded into place. “Class project?” Tim does “independent study,” having already blown through most of the school’s honor classes, which meant he could be up to anything.

  “Personal,” he says, pulling off his goggles and looking over at me with soft blue eyes. He absently pushes his jet black hair back away from his face, then cocked his head as he regarded me. “I’m just… checking on some things.” He is perched on a stool, and spins a quarter-way around to face me.

  I hop up on the stool next to him. “What kind of things?”

  He looks hesitant. “Since you came back from summer vacation, have you noticed anything… strange?”

  “What kind of… strangeness?” I make no mention of the voices, which seem weirder in my memory than they did in reality. Strange enough I don’t want him thinking I’m crazy. Even if we’re not dating.

  “Anything. Everything. Has any—”

  A locker slams in the hallway, and footsteps approach the lab’s door.

  I start. Timothy snatches up a controller with one hand, pointing it at the doorway as he slips off his stool. I feel his other touch my shoulder, pushing back slightly as he steps around my seat and interposes himself between me and the entrance.

  Two drones zip off his desk with a hum and position themselves between us and the door as well. The kind of tiny beams you see on laser pointers flare into life and crisscross over the opening, looking for all the world like miniature laser sights.

  “Oh,” Kei says, walking through the door. She looks down at her shirt, where the two beams now meet in a single, ominous point above her heart. She looks up at us. “Okay.”

  Emily looks over Kei’s shoulder, her eyes wide.

  Kei glances down the hall. “Found them!”

  Timothy sighs with relief and thumbs his remote. “False alarm.” The beams focused on Kei wink out. “Stand down, guys.” He waves the drone controller back towards his workbench and the drones buzz over to it and settle back down, their turbofans spinning slowly to a halt. Neither can be more than a foot wide, but they have the sleek, ominous look of drones meant to impress kids getting them for Christmas.

  Kei raises an eyebrow as she strides in, a confused Emily in tow. “Paintball gear?” she asks Timothy.

  He snorts. “Yep. It’s really escalating out there.” He glances almost warily from the door to the windows.

  “Wait, those aren’t weapons, right?” Emily is peering at the clutter on his workbench.

  “I wish,” Tim mutters. “No, they’re scouts and can sound alarms, but I haven’t added much else.”

  “Except laser sights,” Kei notes, tapping the center of her chest.

  Tim looks away. “Sorry about that. I thought I saw something earlier.” His drones on the workbench are powering down with a faint but disappointed sounding electric whine.

  “Like what?” I ask. “Someone… something on campus?” Maybe I wasn’t the only one getting bad vibes.

  He shrugs. “Just jumping at shadows, I guess.”

  I nod glumly. “You’re not the only one.” I turn away, but catch him looking at me sharply for a moment. His face is normal again, when I look back. I glance at Emily and Kei. “Ready to go?”

  Imaginary or not, I have no wish to linger while the owners of those voices walk the halls.

  “You two go on ahead,” Kei urges. “Haley and I will be staying for a while.”

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